Chapter 8: Development of Emotions in Childhood

Question 1

central theoretical question in emotion research

Answer 1

to what extent are emotion-related responses present from an early age and unfold over time vs. are shaped by environmental factors like family, culture, and neighborhood?

Question 2

crying

Answer 2

one of the earliest emotional expressions in infants, responding to various stimuli

Question 3

disgust

Answer 3

emerges early as well, seen in newborns reacting to sour tastes, aiding from evolutionary adaptation

Question 4

developmental emergence of emotions

Answer 4

can be seen as a sequence of steps in building an emotional repertoire to navigate a complex social world

Question 5

smiles

Answer 5

begin around 3 months, with genuine social smiles emerging in interactions with caregivers by the 3rd month

Question 6

anger

Answer 6

appears between 4-7 months. linked to means-end thinking and the child’s ability to perceive goal blockage

Question 7

sadness and fear

Answer 7

emerge around 4 months. when caregivers don’t respond to their overtures, sadness tends to occur. fear increases notably between 4-12 months

Question 8

separation-related fear

Answer 8

appears universally across cultures, starting toward the end of the first year, peaking around 15 months, and diminishing thereafter. fear in young children has specific neural correlates

Question 9

surprise

Answer 9

arises from a violation of expectancy and contributes significantly to learning. events that violate infants expectations lead to more exploration and enhanced learning

Question 10

self-conscious emotions

Answer 10

around 18 months. emotions like embarrassment and envy emerge, accompanied by prosocial emotional tendencies such as empathy and sympathy-based altruism

Question 11

3 types of prosocial behavior

Answer 11

• offering instrumental help
• offering comfort
• sharing resources

Question 12

factors influencing sharing

Answer 12

• emotional reward
• perceived resource distribution
• competition

Question 13

development of consciousness and mentalizing abilities

Answer 13

happens in the second year. allows for experience of embarrassment and the beginning of empathy. these self-conscious emotions are founded on two complementary processes;
- understanding the subjectivity of others experiences
- awareness of the self as perceived by others

Question 14

self-conscious evaluative emotions

Answer 14

emerge between 2nd and 3rd year. shame, guilt, and regret are expressed. these emotions involve children’s beliefs and reactions to their own selves. the first signs of guilt and shame are seen in 2-year-old children, as seen by gaze aversion and bodily tension upon breaking another child’s toy

Question 15

theory of mind

Answer 15

ability to understand oneself and others in terms of mental states. is crucial for socio-emotional development.

Question 16

language and emotional development

Answer 16

language acquisition significantly influences a child’s emotional development, with children starting to talk about emotions and desires around 18 months old

Question 17

summary of development

Answer 17

Question 18

habituation method

Answer 18

based on the idea that babies tend to look at new things longer than familiar ones

Question 19

methods of studying how infants recognized emotions

Answer 19

• habituation method
• noninvasive neuroimaging (fNRIS, EEG, and ERP’s)

Question 20

emotion face processing

Answer 20

is dominant in the right hemisphere and orbitofrontal cortex regions. infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder show different patterns of brain activation when viewing facial expressions

Question 21

social referencing

Answer 21

the ability to use the emotional display of others to guide one’s own behavior (e.g., the visual cliff experiment)

Question 22

Vaishn and Striano

Answer 22

found that infants were more likely to cross the visual cliff in response to maternal vocalization, or a combination of maternal vocalization and facial expressions, than they were to mothers facial expressions alone

Question 23

preschool age

Answer 23

children start developing a modest ability to label emotional expressions in facial photographs, with happy, sad, and angry being the first emotions identified, followed by scared, surprised, and disgusted

Question 24

happiness vs fear

Answer 24

happiness needs the fewest signals to be identified, while fear needs the most

Question 25

discrimination between vocal expressions

Answer 25

studies using EEG have shown that newborns can differentiate between fearful, happy, and neutral voices even during sleep. children with autism spectrum disorder exhibit less ability, even in infancy, to discriminate a sad voice from a neutral one

Question 26

point-light body (PLB) displays

Answer 26

used to study children’s ability to recognize emotions from body postures and gestures

Question 27

multimodal recognition of emotions

Answer 27

is observed early on, with 6-month-olds being able to match happy and angry bodily expressions to corresponding vocalizations. however, when modalities are in conflict, infants face challenges in emotion recognition

Question 28

amygdala

Answer 28

a brain structure involved in detecting emotionally significant events. is fully developed in newborns and plays a role in directing infants attention toward faces

Question 29

orbitofrontal cortex

Answer 29

implicated in emotion recognition, particularly in response to happy vs. neutral faces in children and adults

Question 30

negativity bias

Answer 30

when our negative experiences affect us more strongly than positive ones. emerges in infancy. this bias serves an evolutionary purpose, allowing children to quickly learn about threatening situations

Question 31

emotion regulation

Answer 31

involves processes that control the onset, intensity, duration, physiology, and expression of emotional experiences. these processes can be automatic or voluntary. while individuals may think of emotion regulation in individual terms, it also has interpersonal dimensions

Question 32

language growth

Answer 32

from 18 months enhances emotion regulation, allowing children to communicate and label emotions

Question 33

executive function skills

Answer 33

as children mature, executive function skills, including inhibitory control and attentional flexibility, improve, aiding in emotional regulation

Question 34

cognitive change

Answer 34

refers to altering how we think about a situation or stimulus to modify its emotional impact

Question 35

affective flexibility

Answer 35

refers to the ability to adaptively switch between different strategies for managing emotions based on the context, goals, and demands of a situation.

Question 36

vagal tone differences

Answer 36

contribute to emotion regulation variations in infants and preschoolers

Question 37

effortful control

Answer 37

refers to the ability to deliberately and voluntarily manage emotional responses, thoughts, and behaviors by overriding automatic or impulsive tendencies. is associated with ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity and develops progressively from infancy to early twenties

Question 38

temperament

Answer 38

genetically based emotional pattern, contribute significantly to emotional development. parents play a crucial role in assessing children’s temperament

Question 39

behavioral inhibition

Answer 39

is associated with neurobiological factors like the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. these children tend to focus on threatening stimuli

Question 40

disinhibition

Answer 40

another temperament aspect influencing long-term adaptation. children with disinhibition may show more hostile intent attribution and higher anger levels

Question 41

heritability

Answer 41

the role of genetics in traits is a significant factor in temperament

Question 42

molecular genetic studies

Answer 42

including candidate gene studies, genome-wide association studies, and polygenic studies, explore the genetic basis of temperament

Question 43

serotonin transporter (5-HTT) gene

Answer 43

short and long alleles, influencing emotional reactivity. a short ellel is linked to reduced serotonin reuptake and is associated with increased attentional vigilance to negative events.

Question 44

catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene

Answer 44

related to dopamine degradation, affects emotion regulation

Question 45

oxytocin

Answer 45

associated with prosocial behavior, altruism, and facial expression recognition. oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with improved facial emotion recognition